Sir, – Your article “IDF fears rise in settler violence ahead
of evacuation of Ulpana outpost” (June 4) was offensive! I am shocked to see
such provocation and slander by The Jerusalem Post.

First of all, your
headline assumes that Jews will be evacuated, which I pray won’t
happen.

Second, if someone comes and throws you out and destroys the home
you built legally as far as you knew, who’s being violent against whom? I
haven’t heard any evacuation proposals for residents of the controversial
Holyland towers in Jerusalem or any other buildings in which corruption was
hidden from the buyers. Nor have I seen any of the tens of thousands of Beduin
who knowingly build homes illegally all across the Negev evacuated.

The
thought that Israel (meaning Defense Minister Ehud Barak) could desire to throw
Jews out into the streets again is totally immoral, and for you to present it
otherwise is unconscionable!

LEAH WOLF Meitar

The saga goes on

Sir, – I take
issue with your editorial “The Ulpana saga” (June 4) and don’t find any of the
points raised to be valid or reasonable.

The talmudic adage, “If you grab
too much, you risk losing it all,” is inappropriate since the land in question
was not grabbed by Israel but was gained in a defensive war.

As for the
comment that a compromise could have been reached had the Arab seller of the
land not been afraid, for fear of retribution, to admit he had sold land to
Jews, surely it is caving in to Arab terrorism to evict Jews from their homes
because of Arab threats.

Most irrelevant of all is the concern that the
passing of the legislation would invite international condemnation. It’s obvious
that our concessions, such as the withdrawal from Sinai and the unilateral
retreat from Gaza, bring at best only short-term approval, with the world losing
interest once the sacrifice has been made.

RHONA YEMINI Givatayim

Sir, –
The writer of your editorial is apparently ill-informed or indifferent to
certain facts.

First, Judea and Samaria should never have to be annexed
as that land was given to the Jews by none other than God Himself. It never
belonged to anyone else. The 1967 government erred at the time in not
“annexing'” it right then and there, which would have prevented the world from
saying that we are occupiers.

Second, the editorial says that “Israel
will be subjected to international condemnation” and a “renewed effort will be
launched to delegitimize the entire settlement project.” Apparently, the writer
is oblivious to the fact that the world condemns us and delegitimizes us no
matter what we do or don’t do.

No nation in the world except Israel is
subject to the world’s “permission” to settle in any part of its
boundaries.

URI HIRSCH Netanya

Sir, – Your editorial tells the story
beautifully. For the first time I know what the issue is all about.

Until
such time as there is some kind of agreement over the West Bank there will be
nothing but trouble and bloodshed.

At the moment, we’re caught in a
terrible situation that seemingly has no answer. Yet there has to be an answer!
We cannot go on this way, with half our citizens facing off against the other
half.

LEONARD ZURAKOV Netanya

Sir, – Your editorial was
mistaken.

There is no certified Arab landowner. Peace Now appealed to the
High Court of Justice in order to avoid the lower courts – where questions of
land-ownership are decided. The Arab claimant is presumed. Also, no attempt was
made to offer the alleged owner compensation, either monetarily or with land in
another area, as has been done in other cases.

The state prosecutor
misrepresented the facts in the case (ownership of the land had not been
determined) and did not defend the interests of the state.

The state
attorney concurred.

Ulpana was not represented, nor was any counter
argument presented.

Without looking into the evidence – relying only on
what the state prosecutor and state attorney presented – the High Court decided
that Ulpana must be destroyed. This is typical of how our judicial system, the
essence of our country, is compromised.

MOSHE DANN Jerusalem

Sir, – The
Knesset can pass laws to legalize the apartments.

The land owners, if
they can prove ownership, will receive compensation. Their own people will also
allow them to live. So the laws would be a lifesaver.

MURRAY S.
GREENFIELD Tel Aviv

Matter of fact

Sir, – Surely one of the most preposterous
claims ever printed in The Jerusalem Post is that, unlike the West, the “Arab
and Islamic worlds put the emphasis in a debate on the issue of facts”
(“Perception and reality still at conflict in Arab world,” Yalla Peace, May 31.)
These are the people whose leaders and media at various times have denied that
history records any Jewish connection to Jerusalem, accused Israeli soldiers of
drinking their victims’ blood in the streets, and, of course, identified the
al-Quds mosque of the Koran, which Muhammad visited on a flying wonder horse,
with a mosque in Jerusalem, which at the time was mosqueless.

Other
examples abound showing that while facts may be considered nice, the Arab
tradition doesn’t necessarily mind contradicting them for rhetorical
impact.

MARK L. LEVINSON Herzliya

Three plays in one

Sir, – The
appearance of the Habimah Theater at the “Globe to Globe” festival in London
(“Protests fail to disrupt Habimah’s London performance,” May 29) was a play
within a play within a play that I was not willing to miss. So I flew to London
for a day to be there.

In my view, the most salient message was missed by
reports of the event in the press.

The first play was Shakespeare’s
challenging work, which included, among other themes, a depiction of
anti-Semitism in Europe in that period.

The second play was entailed in
Habimah’s bold choice to bring this particular play to the festival, to the home
of Shakespeare – in Hebrew and with the specific interpretation of director Ilan
Ronen and actor Yaakov Cohen as Shylock. In countless artistic decisions
throughout the play, this interpretation emphasized the brutal treatment of
Shylock by the Christian characters and the humanity of Shylock
himself.

The actors in the third play were those who wanted to prevent
Habimah’s appearance in England, who repeatedly tried to interrupt the play. (I
say “tried to interrupt” because Habima’s actors didn’t let them, instead
remaining professional throughout and presenting the play from beginning to
end.) More than 30 countries appeared at this festival, including China, Sudan,
Pakistan, Russia and the Palestinian Authority, and not a single voice was
raised against the participation of any country, except that of the Jewish
state. The counterpoint between the efforts of demonstrators to block Habimah,
on the one hand, and the merciless and unjust treatment of Shylock in
Shakespeare’s play, on the other, provided the most salient message of the
evening.

Of all the emotions I experienced as an observer of these three
plays, the strongest was toward Habimah, the national theater of Israel. The
emotion was pride.

WENDY SANDLER Haifa

CORRECTION The headline at the top
of Page 12 in the June 5 Sports section should have been, “Champion Li falls to
142nd-ranked Shvedova,” and not as stated.